Sign up to EliteSkills

Exactly how wide can a thread of hope become before being called a rope of hope? How firmly can you grasp it without cutting your hands? The hope I hold is admittedly not very thick. It is narrow, and stretched accross three-hundred miles. Yet I hold it firmly, without damaging myself. This is merely because nothing has yet tested my grip. She who holds the other end of my hope has not yet given it the hard jerk of rudeness, nor the gradual strain of negligence. There is slack in the line, and I hold it comfortably. I am not the Old Man, cramped in my boat with the line braced upon my shoulder against the giant marlin's never-ending pull. My marlin is resting, far from my boat, motionless, not fighting, and I too am resting. Perhaps someday one of us will make the line tight. Perhaps I'll try to reel her in, and perhaps she'll try to run on me. Will the line be strong enough? Will my grip be so tight that it shreds my fingers? Or will the hope I hold so closely bear the load until we can finally be together?